Standing.
Windmill blades
turn in the sun

shredding air with ease.
The man
looks out

of the window
at the land ahead,
full of aspirations

he hopes to reach.
His wife nearby
sees the same view.

Wishes on display on
this balmy July morn.
London, far away

ticks along swathed in grey
as it did decades before.
The man hopes to return,

sit in cafés, chuckle
as men with briefcases
scuttle around like cockroaches.

Some things never change.
That's OK though
isn't it?

Here with his partner
looking out, content,
a smile appears on his wise face.

Thirty years in the past
he thinks of future times.
Still the same.
Still standing.

A night sometime in mid-July
and darkness hums between the trees.
My eyes look across sodden grass
for another life to waddle past.

A creature,
a ball of bristles
appears from the bushes,
listen out for a snuffle, a mumble.

There, by the fence,
a wooden coat speckled with milk.
Its movement lazy like a man
on a summer Sunday walk home.

Does it come often? I wonder
as a breeze races over my lawn.
A sniff of a fallen branch
before shuffling along.

The evening crawls on,
a caterpillar over a leaf.
I decide to wait a while,
watch my guest awake, alive.

here’s the clunking throb of my heart
and you walk in from work
your hair a fluster of black strands
heels flicked off and keys
tossed into the bowl with a clatter

you flump onto the sofa
say nothing
but listen to the clunking throb
of my heart
and I know we’re both thinking
something has to change
but the answer is hidden
like a note under a stone

we breathe
and the traffic continues outside
we sigh
and the phone shrieks by the door

Snitch-catcher.
Cauldron-stirrer.
Wand-waver.
Quidditch-player.
S­tone-retriever.
Riddle-killer.
Buckbeak-rider.
Triwizard-enterer.­
Phoenix-member.
Snape-hater.
Voldemort-fighter.

What colour are Mondays?
Red? Well mine are.
The same colour
you’d imagine a headache to be,
tomatoes, morello cherries
or like a nosebleed.

Does that mean Tuesdays are blue?
That mouthwash shade,
brain-freeze after a Slushie.
Wednesdays? Perhaps purpley-pink
as burning potassium,
Parma Violets under your tongue.

Thoughts on Thursdays?  Fake-tanned,
tangerine skin, the ugliest orange
for the ugliest day.
But Fridays are a healthier green,
think telephone-pole celery,
cucumber truncheons and kiwis.

Saturdays then? Funeral black
speckled with brown sugar
though Sundays are white.
Hurts-your-eyes-like-snow white,
almost transparent, for they come
and dash by with no tone in-between.

The one with the
         crack
along the middle,
dark and so thin
words could fall through
like water in a colander.

Under the grand chandelier,
a slew of sheets
spat with confident blue juice,
cardboard-covered notebooks,
a team of paper ***** to be tossed
towards your wooden jail.

Sketches of mice, polar bears,
a recipe for rabbit at his right elbow,
red Shakespeare
and a well-read thesaurus
as scruffy
as recently rinsed blonde hair.

You always ***** the lid
on your own *** of ink, black,
sleeping silver scissors
near your French dictionary
and shells over a plastic
sunglasses case.

The table
in the room
in the house on Tomás Ortuño,
serenity bathing you,
a golden spark
of solitude.

horns squawk
   rainforest avenues
  
  exoskeleton
of cars
   arteries clogged
with unlovely   taxi cabs

fat  green  fruit
for sale
     five languages
merge into a knot
hisses    kiss    vowels
   kiwis apples pears

   black guys   basketball
debt rises like      blood pressure
stocks tumble
    but we walk
brogues clop on concrete

count  brick after  brick
sun cascades
   over roof slates
mind cracks in slabs

   (you say
Monroe      stood here)

   heat quivers
men are dominoes
suits    for the office
   a funeral

designer sneakers
   daddy paid for
pigtails   cheap thrills
  violet octagons
  on a stranger’s neck
(behind the closed doors)

today
I drink purple water
     aubergine lips
remind me
of a Tuscany Superb

   list the names
Houston   Charlton
Leroy   Sullivan
Perry   Cornelia
Dominick and Jane

(ladders lead
                away from me
                close to
you)

and back again

It was a Wednesday,
the postman in glorious blue,
a horrific thin letter
in your mailbox.

Across the street
the plump woman watched,
you tore it open,
birthday present in June.

Rejections, maybe.
But no. Instead
black words
said something other.

Happiness crashed upon you,
jumping up, up and down
as if on a trampoline,
a fire, smothering the dark.

Accepted.
You called it a creative wave,
rising, frothing wildly
and falling again.

I simply cannot focus on my work
as all these animals have gone berserk!
Philippa, my darling girl, fill me in,
who on earth is making that awful din?

There’s an aardvark having a bath,
   and a chameleon rolling dice,
an eagle searching in the freezer
   and a goose hiding in the hedge,
an iguana eating our jam
   and a koala juggling our lemons,
a marmoset slurping noodles
   and an octopus carrying paint pots,
a quail wearing a ring
   and a squirrel making the tea,
a unicorn using the vacuum cleaner
   and a walrus playing the xylophone,

and finally Philippa, finally my girl,
   a yak fidgeting with a zip!

Where did they come from? I really don’t know,
but very soon they will just have to go!
I’ve had enough now of this awful din,
thank you Philippa for filling me in!

I. (Wrap).

It does not matter
how they have wrapped the presents
but what lies beneath.

--------------------------------------------------

II.­ (Gifts).

Be thankful my friends
for what you have this Christmas
even if it's socks.

--------------------------------------------------

III. (Reindeer).

In all honesty,
should Santa and his reindeer
fly in this weather?

For at least a week now,
shrivelled leaf-like globes
of heliotrope and platinum,
umbilical cords
caught on the top
of a lamppost's ***** finger,
jostling, huddled together
in the breeze
like players in a scrum.

I go past on the top deck,
see those wrinkled baubles
skirmish, wish to leave
and drift in mist
before rasping
with a whimper,
an out-of-breath splat
of colour caught
in some tree.

Here are my eyes
my fried eggs
teal lily-pads floating
on white albumen.

Here are my elbows
like deformed peaches
my knuckles the peas
wrist corn on the cob.

Here are my teeth
my frosty Stonehenge
a ring of slabs
solid halibut.

Here are my ankles
four gobstoppers
cracking as rocks
under her size-five feet.

Here is my nose
fastened to my face
the garbage chute
meets hoover hybrid.

Here are my knees
two wrinkled potatoes
mashing in their sockets
as waves crumble on me.

Here is my hair
my straw candyfloss
unlike her buttered popcorn
curly-wurly waterfall.

Here are my tonsils
squashy strawberries
wedged at the back
of the cave I once made.

Here are my lips
azalea-pink sweets
flecked with salt
from our slice of sea.

I want to feel those feelings,
those indefinable feelings
of hopscotching
towards it,
one foot in front of the other
to experience
the maudlin aqua-eyed
moments in rain,
jeans
and midnight skirts.

Taking every step necessary
to evade black lakes
down your cheeks,
hot blood on my fingertips.

And there'd be a song,
cordial and soft
on the piano,
delicate
like carnation petals,
writing lyrics
on each other's arms
in multi-coloured ink,
letters that hop
up to our elbows.

How to feel what it's like
with another one,
opposite and the same
all at once.

Cheerful dreams,
placid days
on streets, in homes
with brown drinks,
single and un-single friends
who say 'I knew you two would...'
and to show our love
our hands would touch
and our lips would touch
and the lights would rise.

Bright vegetables of the sea,
disordered hair, thin arms.

Tubes protrude among vivid coral,
an array of shades against a sapphire canvas.

Wobbly vermilion wires poke out
from under rust-coloured rocks.

A clown swims quick through the middle,
orange in a forest of fingers.

Pink bonbons, candy canes,
an underwater confectionery store.

Some throb with electricity,
small pools of violet light near their homes.

Others ***** rainbows
from deep open mouths.

Waltzing in solitude
as tangerine horses gallop.

More creatures weave past,
realise they are in a multi-hued hug.

Hidden paint splatters,
are they aliens of the deep?

We used to play billiards
and fight all the fire.
We'd drink tea
from cheap mugs,

read The Economist
or newspaper,
chat about boyfriends,
girlfriends,

what was and wasn't a rumour?
The printer munched on paper,
lounge about on scratchy chairs.
50% revision, 50% laughter.

Psychology was me
with a group of girls.
How many people, where, when,
and what was it Freud said again?

Spanish was the same,
me, L, C and E.
Picasso's view of war, a bull and a flower,
grammar overload in the afternoon.

And then there was English.
Can you hear me Fitzgerald?
On a row of females (not just one),
roses, four stories and a single trumpet.

On the garish bus
to see the Manor or the specialists,
to walk up and down aisles in Asda,
talking music with baguettes and meatballs.

Two years came, two years went.
Exams, goodbyes, brown envelopes arrived.
After tapas and a holiday
came sly September.

Here I was with fresh men,
different faces from different places.
So I walked up the steps
into the next avenue.

They have been together,
give or take, for fifteen years.

Their marriage in the clasp
of puberty, its voice deepening,
its stubble sprouting.

Not long ago, shopping.
Necessary. Kid’s birthday.
It comes around quick,
like lunch, paying for the Ploughman’s
at the self-service in town
when the clock flicks to twelve.

Her right hand on his right hand.
They still do this,
though not quite as often.

Today,
he returns from work, wrenches
the tie out from beneath the collar
of a shirt she ironed yesterday.
Son, out.
Daughter, also out.

The fridge plagued with magnets
and a list; Milk,
                  Bread,
                  Eggs?
Inside, two beers,
sweating cold.
Later, he thinks.

How’s your day been darling?
We need to be at the school at six.
Oh yes.
They need to hear
how their progenies
excel at the expressive arts.
He hasn’t been expressive in years.

Hours expire.
Now his bare feet slide
under the duvet.
The wife reads a while,
Sunday Times bestseller.

Then she hugs him,
touches the skin she has known
since she was nineteen
at Northampton, literary sponge
absorbing Shakespeare and Joyce.

It is warm.
It is something
that has not changed.
The two of them are content.
They know they can
always have this.

I'll ask you not to turn off the lights,
I want them to blind me
with their brilliant filaments
until the bulbs break
like a vase on a tiled floor,
the walls, the door go back
to being charcoal black
as they have been so many times before.

I have started to abhor
the roads that define me,
the words that describe me
and my traits,
the way I must walk in wintery air
to a migraine inducing wilderness
to be squashed into old moulds,
will this be adequate for you now and when?

What is this fall,
does it affect you, your actions,
your jumbled jigsaw piece thoughts?
These bruises are purple,
this brain is strained,
inject me with zest
until my wrist pains
so much it must combust.

Out of the glass is nothing,
a candyfloss cloud, a tree, a lawn,
it bores me,
an artist is needed,
paint a new canvas
swathed in colour
and things from my weekend dreams
lucid and intense.

I am a ******* up ball
of paper, unfold me, still legible?
Fold it again, an airplane
chucked into an angry breeze
or please,
if the lamps are tough enough,
watch my words illuminate,
drool across the table.

Next door’s cat,
alone as they’ve gone away
on holiday,
slouched on the lawn,
our garden.

A monochrome tube
flops over, turns over,
liquorice eyes peer up,
a rolling pin
kneading the green.

Thinks it owns the place,
can lounge about
wherever it pleases
drizzled in June honey,
‘round ours for a week.

It knows when I am close,
a mewling baby,
rises like an overweight man
from an armchair
and asks to be loved.

This is the new world.
A virtual Vegas crammed with bright lights,
stimulating colours. Sensory overkill
for the new generation.

The mice scurry. A click. Words
and pictures fill up the sad, vacant space.
Information pours into our heads and trickles
out our ears in a few seconds.

No wallet, no coins, no notes.
Objects become ours with no money
in sight. No handshake, no hello,
but a deal has been done.

We are obsessed with the here and now.
A need to know what he’s doing, she’s doing,
surely they want to know what we’re doing too?
A second later, the world can know.

Are you feeling lucky punk?
Plunge into an ADHD mess of those who wish
to be loved by the unseen, unknown.
We are alone, unloved. We need you.

Television without a remote.
Films, music without a disc.
An online Orwellian world.
What was ‘hot’ last week

is recycled into a new fad.
A constant tinker of
layouts, images, ideas,
designed to bind us in chains.

Look at me! Look at me!
Play me, **** the clocks.
Once you’re in, like hell
you’ll get out.

The new world trapped in wires.
Why talk when we don’t need to?
Troops are growing in numbers.
Sign up. It’s free and always will be.

Maybe God created the world as we knew it.
Everything we knew and didn’t stuffed
into a space that grew each day.
The new world is no different.

We stare and sit at reality number two.
There are our ‘friends’, then everyone else.
We are not alone. Anyone, anywhere can find anything.
The life we live scrolls before besieged eyes.

It can go slow, it can go fast.
It can crash when it gets too much.
Maybe it is just like us.
Refresh the page.

Now, what’s on your mind?

Over the garden you droop,
crooked fingers
point in every direction.

When summer's gone
you shake, a wet dog,
the grass strewn with shrivelled waste.

"Not so young anymore",
a weaker wrinkled body
battered by almost all weathers.

A faded jade jacket
covers your naked figure
as the cold days come closer.

From my window I look,
and your strands of hair
nearly scrape the sky.

bodies under a light
  nothing on our feet
green tea past midnight

lips spell catastrophe
  I reek of calamity
speech drops out slow

fogged-up glasses
  crackle of a packet
of chocolate biscuits

soft fingertips
  seconds swallowed
stuck in traffic

pathetic
  catch her eyes
self-induced electric shock

burnt tongue
  there sing the clocks
she lets me in

You are the sunrise
that illuminates the twisted roads ahead.

The photocopier
that seems to do what you didn’t want it to.

The branch
that sways precariously in the wind.

The clock
that stops, starts, stops, starts.

The froth
that dangles a little too far over the side of my cup.

The peach
that contains a solid stone under the façade.

The book
that always ends with unanswered questions.

The confetti
that looks glorious but doesn't stay for long.

The nosebleed
that stains my pillow at night.

The boomerang
that flew off in the distance, yet to return.

I.

A louse in a house
or a mouse on a blouse.
A bell that goes ****
or a gong that goes ****.
A gap on a map
or a cap on your lap.
A drink in the sink
or an ink that stinks.
A spleen on a screen
or a queen who is green.
A bow in the snow
or a crow that glows.

II.

A wash or a whip,
a lip or a lop,
a top or a tip,
a car or afar,
a bar or a war,
a door or a snore,
a bore or a nail,
a flail or a whale,
a run or a bun,
a sun or a moon,
a spoon or a bus,
a fuss or a sigh,
a cry or a cheer,
a fear or a smile,
a while or a pen,
a den or a cat,
a mat or a hat,
a bat or a glass,
a vase or a weight,
a mate or a fork,
a cork or a mop,
a cop or a stop.

III.

Apples and artichokes, ants and antelopes,
bees and beers, books and brains,
cucumbers and chimneys, ***** and coats,
dogs and drains, dots and dominoes,
ears and eejits, elephants and exams,
flies and flutes, files and friends,
grasses and guts, giants and gyms,
horrors and hiccups, horses and hills,
igloos and irons, irises and idiots,
jumpers and jackets, jodhpurs and jellies,
kings and kettles, kites and kittens,
lions and lamps, lemons and lunches,
mums and monsters, mosses and moths,
noses and notes, nightmares and needles,
oblongs and orang-utans, organs and oranges,
paintings and pennies, ponds and pants,
quiches and quizzes, questions and queues,
rainbows and rings, rascals and rabbits,
snakes and sprouts, sweets and salts,
trumpets and trains, tables and toasters,
umpires and ukuleles, umbrellas and uniforms,
violets and vests, violins and vials,
wheels and wings, windows and weeds,
xylems and x-rays, xylophones and xysters,
yachts and yoghurts, yards and yaks,
zigzags and zephyrs, ziggurats and zombies.

I traipse along fractured slabs
to get away,
away from worn floors
to a place
of haunting silence -
just cope with it I say.
From the cavern
to the cave,
beneath ***** dishcloth clouds,
a monochrome Rubik's cube
of a mind,
sluggish and masses
of ******* ideas,
there
then forgotten.
Rummage around
in the green sack,
pick out a dream
to dream
tonight
before it melts
like Red Leicester on brown bread
into an image
hard to decipher,
a TV dotted with white spots -
smack me on the back
'til a picture returns.
Blindfold me
until I cannot see,
give me another sliver
of suspect perfection.

As I opened my fridge one morning,
early on before sunrise,
I was greeted by the stench of tuna fish
which at that time came as quite a surprise.

And I poured myself a glass of orange juice,
the stronger stuff with bits in,
and then tossed yesterday’s Guardian
into the overflowing silver bin.

‘I’ll pull back the curtains’ is what I thought next,
nobody, of course, out on the street.
No sooner had I picked up the remote control
when I felt like something to eat.

‘I’ll get myself some toast’ I said in my head,
and smear it with some Marmite,
but my days, my eyes were so **** sore,
I couldn’t see if I was doing it right.

The years I’ve been waking up early,
every time it is the same,
barely making it down the stairs,
all part of God’s make-him-pay game.

But I finally sat down once more
and could now relax in front of the news,
only to see some cheery couple
with a glass of champagne on a cruise.

It made me wonder, what it would be like
if tomorrow I just stayed in bed.
Would I have an extra few hours to rest
or would somebody find me dead?

Then a van pulled up on the other side of the road,
bloke closed it with a very loud bang,
made me jump so much I spilt half my drink,
seconds later is when the phone rang.

‘Hello?’ I recognised the voice immediately,
a friend calling me at this hour?
They said how they wanted to pop round later
if it wasn’t going to be a terrible bother.

‘Sure’ I replied and then soon hung up,
my voice sounded coarse like Velcro.
Only then did my eyes see a black figure
standing right outside my window.

Five days a week
   for six months now
I have crossed the street
   from work
to the little shop
   that sells sticky buns
pork nuzzled by pastry
   and perused the food
something for lunch
   and almost always pick
a baguette brimming with chicken
   chilled cucumber disks
a sprinkling of lettuce
   plus a muddy-coloured latte
for that extra afternoon kick

though today is different
   I’m feeling ruthless
a shimmery packet of salt and vinegar
   waits for me to pluck it
from the shelf
   squeak it open
the lady says hi and I reply
   with a we’ve spoken
five days a week for six months now
   and it’s about time I told you
these small encounters
   brighten my day
a rotten cliché I know
   so I leave quick with my grub
but a tiny grin on my face

unwrap the baguette
   take a satisfying bite

Before you came,
the lighthouse.
   Aging, silently,
   saw it blink
   as if it knew me,
was stalking me,
a tiny inflamed eye.
   Reds popped as corks,
   smudge of blood
   on a north-eastern
summer sky.
And then,
   in a second
   as quick as a pulse
   on a wrist,
a flick to white,
a shard of champagne
   light latched
   upon my attention.
   Back to red.
And back again.
Two colours breathing in,
   blowing out,
   calling you.

I.

Mistletoe kisses
for the hordes of giddy folk
alcohol in blood

--------------------

II.

Presents covered up
just to be unwrapped again
a colourful waste

--------------------

III.

Evening skulks along
terrible television
Quality Street tin

Your fingertips
are icicles,
doodling
figures of eight
on my cheeks.
I see your breath
like little white clouds
of smoke
drift in the winter air
and vanish,
as if you didn't breathe
out at all.
The branches
of the nearby oak tree
sprayed
in whipped cream,
the ground sprinkled
with a vanilla ice cream-like
layer of snow.
And as it slowly
starts to melt
you lean in for a kiss,
the frosty blast
of mint
infecting my teeth.

It begins brusquely in the dark, a hoary noise,
a tune which all the cats in town enjoy.
Yes, they stare at the stage for a sparkle of gold
to come forth from the shadows, the sound will take hold.

Rippling through the room, a devilish groan
rises, spirals high from an aged baritone.
The other musicians join in this depressing affair
and the men in their fifties are still fused to their chairs.

The sulky cello, whining trumpet slither into the mix,
the sadness fills the ears of several dozen beatniks.
Then with no caution comes a madcap flow
of music from the star performer, frantic yet mellow.

And it slows, then picks up, goes on for what feels like a year,
this rugged Jazz, no words but my, **** sincere.
Like something so eccentric that can't be left alone,
everyone captivated by the golden saxophone.

Today, no yesterday
you purchased a raincoat
to drench you in grey,
way too expensive
but worth it, about right
if you hand over enough.

They will see you ride,
maiden on a bike
through the torrent in your new
good-on-the-eyes garment,
with just the slightest hint
of merry pink lining.

our song is playing

every couple
seems to have one

   ours is a three-minute blast
   of hot rock

and for a moment
I am taken back

to the time we met

   you bartending
  
all blonde curls

squeezing lemons
over colourful drinks

   and unsociable me

awkwardly floating
   through young manhood

held in the warm grasp
of another crush

and like that

this is our song

I love it

   you say
as you scooch

   across the sofa
so our hands

our fingers
   touch

   then lock together

I told you not to forget
but you did,
a letter resigned in a drawer,
a story left to grow dust
and words to vaporise
like they were never written
and meant one thing.

I liked our kaleidoscope moments,
candy-colours in triangles and circles,
melting stained glass
but you broke it,
dropped it on the floor or something
and we couldn't fix it,
those reds and greens and golds
a sprinkled memory
at the back of our brains.

So we used a spinning top
and watched it ****
upon the table,
round and round
but it slowed,
staggering
like a man intoxicated
and it fell from the wooziness,
too sick to go on.

So we played chess
even though I am mediocre at it
and I was white,
you were black,
the little kings, queens, bishops
forced forwards by our fingers
until they didn't want to play anymore,
back in the box please,
and you won, of course,
you won every game with ease.

Said we'd play again sometime
but you didn't remember
and I bought a new kaleidoscope too,
just for us to use
but you forgot didn't you,
it happened again.

Hadn’t changed numbers.
A voice bristled in my ear,
said why not then, it’s been years.
Months passed.
An amalgam of frail strained hearts,
smells on pillows we tried to lose.
Chose the boulevard in the end,
gaudy nostalgia blazing
like a forest fire in my eyes.
I waited.
Ran a finger over rails
those skaters we knew marked,
back when something called lust
fizzled between you them and me,
through the airwaves;
the lyrics can still trickle
on my tongue if you ask nicely.
Peroxide-blondes, men with muscles
the size of marrows,
a summer pick ‘n’ mix
lacking in looks, in fine taste.
Went to read a book in the sea
for a while,
slurped up half a pint in chapters
then lost the plot again.
That’s when you came
in polka dots,
a pack of colourful taffy
swinging idly from a wrist,
peanut-butter cups
like lily-pads on your palm.
As if you’d never left,
same number, name, face.
Forgot what goodbye was,
tripped over a lost hello.

There’s a clumsiness
to the way I unbutton my shirt,
hoist it over my head
and let it snuffle to the floor.

I stand there, *******
and unkempt armpit hair on display
but you’ve already almost
totally disrobed,

the light from outside
licking your spine,
dribbling down a leg
like melted sunflower petals.

We catch each other’s eyes,
except you don’t catch eyes,
you see the other person
looking at you
and you know what’s next,

the standing ****,
dry skin and bellybuttons
viewed only by a fortunate few,
a bunch of names
like grapes squashed
into bed sheets
we won’t touch again.

I think this is supposed to be sexier,
my underwear flinging off,
boxer shorts champagne cork
towards the window,
your bra sunny side up
by the foot of the door.

Rather I watch you
peer at the skin I’m in
waiting for a shrill buzzer sound,
a number out of ten
and a spatter of applause
from a conjured-up crowd.

I think you look glorious.
I go to say this but my brain feels
as though it’s been whisked.
You walk over, slink your hands
towards my face,
put an icicle finger to my lips.
I’ve no idea what I’m doing
but you’ll show me the way.

I don’t suppose
you remember
that day one December
when I scored a hat-trick
in the mouthwash-smeared hall
and thought I was Messi
for a couple of seconds

or when we went to the Tate
in about year eight
for a rare school-trip
with a gang of teachers
and we gawped at the art
like the cat next door
stalking a bird

or when my Dad said
that my uncle had expired
and I was on stage one night
with Joe’s coat of many colours
and wet veins on my face
for some reason
I didn’t get

summer          light
   drinkable
through
               yellow straws
parched grass
gasping
     for         cups
of   yummy
       liquid
boys with limp
                        fringes
awkward  
stubble
     like barcodes
girls   lap   it   up
   thirsty             dogs
   in mulberry
skirts
   cusp of            eighteen
             walking
with dragonfly wings
         sunset colours come
   ooze through
gauze
darkness on     lips
   presents a          kiss

The man decked in blue
     sits quite content
          on a sofa
               and observes wealthy offspring

               waltz in flashing their brilliant teeth
          glossed with potent peppermint.
     These teens
don't know love,

lust is all it is.
     While the Jazz bops away,
          more whisky is poured
               and they zip out to get jammy.

               The man, mid-twenties,
          kind of blue, dapper apparel,
     has one on the rocks.
Sees them

walk in most evenings,
     cute blondes with flawless skin,
          guys in suits, bow ties, the works,
               gaze into each other's pupils.

               There are regulars,
          Robert, the chap from Yale,
     Quentin, sly guy at Harvard
and Carly, still at school the man believes,

who's coquettish, fresh,
     these two want to have her
          but she's astute,
               knows just what she wants.

               They're all after her in fact.
          Every male in the room
     turns their head,
can't blame them,

she's like Candyfloss,
     all the men want a taste
          but there's not enough for everyone
               and they don't look like the sharing kind.

               The man in blue
          just grins to himself
     thinking how grand it is
that he's single, sensible, secure.

He'd be more
than one page in your journal
this man, Yorkshire-born,
anthropology at Pembroke,
the one who wrote
about a fox and a song.
Piano music in the room,
British-bohemia.
You, enthralled,
wonderfully drunk
among turtle-necked boys,
friends of his
and then him,
the unscratchable diamond
you wanted bad.
     'Then the worst happened.'
Earrings like tears in his palm,
two accents mixing,
new paints in a ***.
Before long
he'd be chucking
clods at your window
though you wouldn't be home.
But his name would spray
from your mouth for good.

The flowers you bought me
are so pretty. They are
so pretty,

little gloves of colour.
The window is open -
perhaps rain

on the way. And the reds
and whites against grey,
a light breeze

that runs into the room.
I try but don't recall
all the names,

but they smell so lovely
and you will remember
I am sure.

Like the loss of a limb
or a missing *****,
whether an arm, kidney
or half of a heart.

Every bone numbed,
laden with pins and needles,
every puppet-like move
languid, free of joy.

Hoping for a letter,
brandy to spike your mood,
but for now it’s Yeats on the moors
as you long for your wife.

Tonight
   got away from the mess
city   toothache     throb
ensemble of car horns
     shoppers throwing     money
like empty   sweet wrappers

park is better
calming me     a cup of cocoa
stepped     into Narnia
     without the wardrobe

snow   squeals   with each step
little deaths
   little graves where others have   stood
a ring of prints from   a hundred   shoes

breathe in     white silence
   find frost’s left a hypothermic   dance
between wires   of a tree
   white fibres together as arms

sweep clean   the bench
   blanket of sherbet
sit and think
how simple it is to be     forgotten
   alone   a caterpillar of tinsel
in a tattered   brown box
not allowed to   shine past
   December thirty-first

or not shine at all
   rather a rope of dud   fairy-lights
   I wonder   I wonder
lamppost emits a   frigid glow
night unfurls above my head
  
   I left my gloves
at home     again

Audrey, look out the window and see your dreams.
Brydie, lay on the carpet and think of home.
Charlie, stand in the garden and let the rain wash the pain away.
Danielle, shout at the skies for this awful weather.
Ellen, smile as you see a rainbow in the distance.
Fiona, stick out your tongue to soften their fall.
Gemma, pretend there's nothing falling from the sky.
Hannah, dance in the rain in that favourite dress of yours.
Imogen, jump into puddles, one after the other.
Jade, wave to the people going past in their cars.
Keri, open your hands to cup the cold water.
Laura, laugh as the neighbour's umbrella turns inside out.
Molly, hope the grass is better for football tomorrow.
Natasha, sigh as you drive through it all.
Olivia, read a book by the nice warm fire.
Paige, sleep through the hammering of the droplets.
Queenie, scream as you dash through the storm.
Rhianne, fall back onto that squishy armchair inside.
Steph, pray for the sun to come out soon.
Tuula, watch the leaves huddle against the kerb.
Una, listen as they patter patter on the rooftop.
Victoria, take off those sodden shoes.
Whitney, snap another photograph or two.
Xandra, run to get back home to your family.
Yasmeen, follow the trail of the water on the window.
Zara, give up waiting for the rain to stop.

The night sky is wrapped in curls of black
and the air purrs, fizzes with the sound of hot
fluorescent lights, choking the air with vacation colour,
blinking fast like there’s something in their eyes.
Gulls guffaw in circles over 174,
where inside old wallpaper is torn
and dated lampshades dangle from above.
Two pegs on a line outside my box,
the bed is rickety and isn’t as fit anymore.
The novices, the returnees
seek silver and gold in the oasis
before their feet sting in scorching sand.
Win what you lose, lose what you win,
hold onto it before it tumbles back onto white cushions.
Money hiccups out of ugly machines
when they have a session of indigestion.
Young girls, carefree and cute walk around in a daze
as chubby men waddle along the pavement
thinking of that next pint.
Lined up at the bar with peanuts and bottles,
the large screen projects to all.
A clink of glasses and a click of snooker *****
past nine, past ten, past eleven as well.
And then the plug is pulled out,
everybody settles down to sleep,
but we all know they’ll do it again
when tomorrow’s summer evening calls.

I. (The Real Poetry).

All these notions but nothing on the page.
Haven't we heard it all before?
Impetus from departed greats
wash ashore in our brains
but when confronted with an void white meadow
our hands go numb,
glued to the roof of a freezer.
This idea of mine is big, challenging,
but so far only a few thousand letters
have made ***** snow angels.
In its place, poetry.
Swifter to write, to read.
No rhymes usually,
just haphazard feelings lurching out my head
like a turquoise waterfall.
Sure I pace round the room
waiting for the next line to evolve
but who doesn't?
I write about real people,
people I speak to, people I know.
Do they know it's them when they skim my work?
Perhaps yes.
Perhaps they don't read them.
Perhaps best for all of us.
The book remains unseen, incomplete
while real poetry rushes into the world
like another superfluous boy band
playing more vapid pop.
Numb them instead.

II. (The Wind).

On a bench
in the garden
I sit with her
as she rests her frizzy Goldilocks
on my shoulder
and says I shouldn't go on Sunday.
A few years younger,
sweet and out of bounds.
Out. Of. Bounds.
So why am I holding her hand?
Doesn't mind from what I can tell.
She likes me.
No she can't.
When does 'the other side' ever like this?
I've told her about the one back home,
how she could be superseded.
I'll disclose, for a while now
I've seen photographs
and wondered what if,
what if the same way too feeling
snaked up the ladders
and throttled me?
What would her sister say?
'He's only been here four days
and look at him, cuddling
the queen of yesteryear.'
Her sister comes out, surprise, joins us.
Say no words, look at stars overhead.
The direction of the wind is altering.
Must be.
I unzip my eyes.

III. (The Sun and the Moon).

Half eight
a year or so in the distance
on a Wednesday morn.
A car.
Neither of us can drive as I write.
One of us is about to though.
London.
Why?
To meet friends.
Another reason?
A show.
A show of sun and moon.
A sporadic delight like a white Christmas.
I say to P it's one of those events
that must be attended.
I'm what, twenty-one?
She's gotta be twenty-four, five?
When will this ever come about again?
Have to acquire this chance.
He says if she'll be aware of the poem,
the one I scrawled down some time ago.
Doubt it, but you never know.
You never know.
Maybe it's true.
A young, beautiful girl
with a hat and a guitar.
There's something you don't see every day.
To the city.
*Rejsen begynder.

pulse of 80s music
     conversation
swirls
between   drinks

bubbles rolling
     under
   the   tongue

bank holiday getaway
beermats

not getting any   younger
   doesn’t mean
you have to feel   older

people
   stream in
   shadows pour
across   the     floor

names that haven’t spilt
from my lips
   for years

   and you wonder     how     long
the   puddle   will last

names scribbled
by a   dartboard

the faint    
     clunk
   of potted   pool *****

dialogue   fizzles
like   tablets
   in water

voices
   dripping
coming     then going

wilt into
the cool   spring   night

caught up in a sa of altrd imags
alcohol flowing
   rd pupils
from all th slfis
   ****
scroll up /// scroll down
m8 u waz wastd
   vryon at ach othr
voics scrambl;ing
for pol position
#popularity laddr
a flck of jalousy
   slic of malic
   *fyi
grn lights signal
sombody cars rite??
hr bgins th dz-dss-
   the dscnt into pixls
primary colours
   '*** **'
night grows old
   plot unravls lik a ball of string
coagulats thick and bad
let fingrs do the talkin' 4 u
  nams bcom strangrs
bcom nams bcom strangrs
TTYL
:)

We walked back to hers the other night
from the bar, not drunk, not at all,
laughing a lot though, so easy
to make each other smile.
She leapt in all the puddles,
maize coloured swirls in the ***** water,
full of vigour, lips a kiss-me red
and she did this until we got to her door.
Made two herbal teas, stuck on a Fighters song,
mouthed the words into a pretend microphone,
thrashed her Irish orange hair in time
with the guitars, pretty beat by the final strum.
Flopped onto the sofa, hint of mint on her breath
as she cuddled up closer to my grey cardigan,
a furious fire before my eyes
at 10pm but the flames don’t seem to burn.

I think of seawater
because of its briny tang,
because when,
by accident,
it trips into my mouth,
coats the inside of my cheeks
in a clear, chloride gloss.

I think of seawater
because of the way
it blooms along the shore,
dazzling white jewels
slinking up our toes,
our feet left with a glimmer,
slippery and clean.

I think of seawater
because your hair was soaked,
chestnut brown trickles
wriggling down your face
and I could smell the beach
in the pool of your neck,
fresh and transparent

at the crook of your lips.

The wallpaper in your grandmother’s front room
is appalling. Old bible yellow pages,
bevy of bubbles joining,
thickening like arteries beneath the surface.

And what is that? The daily brain teaser,
printed patio of letters.
Five down - ‘state of being alone’.
I think I know it. I am sure of it.
Pack of hard-boiled molar-breakers covers the rest.

I do not know why
you have brought me here.
We stand like soundless instruments.
Wrenched from bed so had to dress,
brush my lips ******, rake my hair.
Presentable? Presentable.

Your gran, almost ninety, concrete
cracks lightning strike on the cheeks,
specific smell that comes
with the accumulation of decades.
She does not know me, will forget me.

Syllables will stagger out
from the mouth, words, whole sentences
watery or gone. Instant evaporation.
A shuffle. And another shuffle.
A loudening shuffle.

Enter. Oh, how sorry I feel!
Hands quiver as frightened leaves,
cup quickstepping on the saucer.
You dash over, take control,
steady the shake of brick-ish tea.

My name comes, tinged with a lisp.
Your grandmother looks at me
with her eyes, jelly-rolled marbles,
a smile creaking across her face.
You know it. I know it. She knows it.
A woman caught in the icy fist of winter.

She sits. Sighs. I know the feeling.
I bend down, say slowly,
enunciate clearly.
Solitude.
Five down, my dear? Yes, correct.